ACTIVELY RESPONDING TO DATA STORAGE TRAFFIC

• US 20150081871A1
• Filed: 09/17/2014
• Published: 03/19/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 09/17/2013
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: NetApp, Inc.
• Original Assignee: NetApp, Inc.
• Inventors: Labiaga, Ricardo, Krishna, Ravi, Kenchammana-Hosekote, Deepak, Soundararajan, Gokul, Chadwell, Craig, Bairavasundaram, Lakshmi Narayanan
• Granted Patent: US 9,864,517 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/223
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0604 Improving or facilitating administration, e.g. storage management
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0653 Monitoring storage devices or systems
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0659 Command handling arrangements, e.g. command buffers, queues, command scheduling
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0662 Virtualisation aspects
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0664 at device level, e.g. emulation of a storage device or system
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0665 at area level, e.g. provisioning of virtual or logical volumes
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/067 Distributed or networked storage systems, e.g. storage area networks [SAN], network attached storage [NAS]
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/5027 the resource being a machine, e.g. CPUs, Servers, Terminals
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/5072 Grid computing
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/1001 for accessing one among a plurality of replicated servers
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/1008 based on parameters of servers, e.g. available memory or workload monitoring of computer activity G06F11/30

Abstract

Technology is described for actively responding to data storage traffic. The technology can provide an application program interface; receive, via the application program interface, from an application, a command to query a data storage attribute associated with a virtual data storage component; query the associated virtual data storage component; and return to the application a value for the data storage attribute.

Claims

1. A method performed by a computing system, comprising:

providing an application program interface;

receiving, via the application program interface, from an application, a command to query a data storage attribute associated with a virtual data storage component;

querying the associated virtual data storage component; and

returning to the application a value for the data storage attribute.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the data storage component is one or more of a virtual data storage volume, a virtual server, or a virtual networking component.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the data storage attribute relates to network traffic.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the data storage attribute relates to data storage commands.

5. The method of claim 1, further comprising identifying a hot spot, wherein the hot spot identifies a source or target of a large volume of data.

6. The method of claim 5, wherein the hot spot is at least one of an application, an intermediary component, or a virtual or physical storage volume.

7. The method of claim 5, further comprising, based on the identified hot spot, recommending a storage configuration.

8. The method of claim 1, further comprising mirroring storage operations transiting a virtual data storage component at a workload analyzer.

9. The method of claim 8, wherein the workload analyzer is a virtual data storage component.

10. A system, comprising:

a processor and memory;

an application program interface component;

one or more virtual data storage components;

one or more physical data storage components;

a workload analyzer component configured to, under control of the processor, mirror data commands transmitted to one or more virtual or physical data storage components, and analyze workload at the one or more virtual or physical data storage components;

11. The system of claim 10, further comprising a management console application.

12. The system of claim 11, wherein the management console application is configured to identify one or more hot spots based on output from the workload analyzer.

13. The system of claim 12, wherein the management console recommends a storage configuration to satisfy a service level objective.

14. The system of claim 10, wherein the workload analyzer is a virtual data storage component.

15. The system of claim 10, wherein the workload analyzer reviews network traffic between a specified virtual or physical computing device and the one or more virtual or physical data storage components.

16. The system of claim 10, wherein the workload analyzer recommends a storage configuration to satisfy a service level objective.

17. The system of claim 16, wherein the workload analyzer recommends addition of a cache, volume, or storage server.

18. A computer-readable storage medium storing instructions, comprising:

instructions for providing an application program interface;

instructions for receiving, via the application program interface, from an application, a command to query a data storage attribute associated with a virtual data storage component;

instructions for querying the associated virtual data storage component; and

instructions for returning to the application a value for the data storage attribute.

19. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 18, further comprising instructions for mirroring storage operations transiting a virtual data storage component at a workload analyzer.

20. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 18, further comprising instructions for identifying a hot spot, wherein the hot spot identifies a source or target of a large volume of data.